


the back to school special

by impossibletruths



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Percy/Vax, Background Relationships, F/F, Families of Choice, Very Background Zahra/Vex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 04:39:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12005199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: Pike comes back to school after a year away to find a lot of things have moved on around her. And, some haven't.





	the back to school special

**Author's Note:**

> written for day two (f/f) of critrole rarepair week (and also sort of day three (m/m))

She sees Vax first, carting a box into the new apartment––they’d had to move, she remembers vaguely, something about an animal complaint, and now its the twins and Percy and Keyleth in some run-down complex on the edge of campus––and he only just manages to set the box down before she throws herself at him, grinning ear to ear.

“Pickle!” He lifts her off her feet and whirls her around in a circle, laughing. Vex appears in the doorway a moment later as if drawn by the noise, and her face lights up to see Pike.

“You’re back!” She barely waits for her brother to deposit her before wrapping Pike up in an enormous hug, and Pike gets a mouthful of her wild hair. She steps back when Vex lets her down to breathe, looking only a little chagrined at the hair-induced oxygen shortage.

“When did you get in?”

“Oh, an hour ago,” Pike says, doing her level best not to think of the past six hours she spent on a plane. “I’ve just been trying to get to campus from the airport.”

“Some of us,” says a wry voice behind her, “have transportation.”

“Percy!”

He smiles one of those rare, full grins and lets her hug him. He’s still smiling when she steps back, only slightly more sardonic.

“Sorry,” she says, half reflex. “I didn’t even think to ask. Is the car...?”

“Oh, yeah, this.” Vax pats the hood of a beat-up taupe Toyota that’s probably as old as he is. “Percy patched her up, got her working good as new.”

“I really didn’t,” Percy replies, but his chest puffs up just a little at the praise. Vax reaches out, squeezes his hand, and–– oh. That’s new.

Vax catches her looking and clears his throat. “C’mon, then,” he says. “Grog n’ Scanlan are upstairs. Are you...?”

“I’m in the dorms,” she says, laughing a little even though it’s still a bitter pill, that they’re all here and she... isn’t.

It’s her fault, she supposes. She shouldn’t have been gone so long.

“You can have the couch, darling,” Vex promises. “We’ve got three.”

“Come and see,” Vax invites again, more insistent, and, well. She can’t refuse them, not when they’re all so pleased to see her. It warms something in her chest, melts some small, icy fear that they wouldn’t want to see her, wouldn’t care.

“Alright,” she agrees, and the twins whisk her upstairs. It’s a four story walkup, and they’re on the fourth floor. But it’s fine, Vex assures her; Grog has been helping them move in.

“Even the couches?”

“Especially the couches.”

They laugh at that and it’s nice; it’s familiar. God, she’s missed this.

“Right,” says Vax when they reach the door, a slightly crooked eight hanging just above the peephole. He puts down the box he’s been carrying to rub his hands together. “It’s not quite finished yet, but––”

And he pushes the door open and there is––

Keyleth.

Keyleth, in the middle of a brilliantly bright entryway, already halfway lived in with a pile of shoes notably not on the shoe rack and a row of coat hooks that have been stuck to the wall with command strips and painter’s tape and a rickety table that seems to be balancing on a stack of post-it notes. Through the hall she can see the living room, with the aforementioned couches, and beyond that a sliver of the kitchen, but her attention is wholly drawn to Keyleth, half-kneeling on the table as she tries to hang a tapestry on the wall.

Except now she’s staring. Staring right at Pike.

And Pike, as though she has been punched in the gut, stares right back.

She’s the same. She’s just exactly the same, fiery hair a mess of loose braids, feet tangled in her skirt, long arms bare as she tries to wedge a thumbtack through the tapestry and into the wall, her decorating halfway between success and disaster.

“Oh,” she says, after the moment has stretched on far too long, and Pike cannot even pretend to be taking in the house because there’s Keyleth and–– “You’re back.”

“Yeah,” Pike says, because it’s about all she can manage. And then, because everyone is here, because everyone is watching, “I just got in.”

Percy, God bless his soul, rescues her. “Keyleth, what are you doing?”

“Hanging this. I thought it would look good here.”

“It will,” Vex agrees smoothly. “But wouldn’t you rather have a ladder?”

“I’m really fine,” Keyleth shrugs, and proves it by reaching up to drive the thumbtack through one corner and into the wall. The table wobbles precariously.

“I’ll find a step stool,” Vax suggests, and he and his sister slip further into the house while Percy helps Keyleth off the table. She huffs.

“Really, I’m fine.”

“Oh, it’s not you I’m worried about,” Percy tells her as she straightens her skirt. Pike stares. She’s tall. She’d forgotten that, how tall she is. “It’s the poor table. It’s already been through so much. Must it suffer this indignity too?”

“Fine,” she sulks, but Percy is smiling again, and this is new too, this easy teasing. She feels like an outsider, a spectator. Worse is that they don’t even notice her, rolling their eyes and ribbing each other, and she should have expected it, she did expect it. But it’s different, seeing it in person. Feeling it.

“Would you like the tour, Pike?” Percy suggests, and Keyleth’s eyes jump back to her, unusually indecipherable, and the twins are back and arguing about something meaningless, and they are such a unit, so contained, and she is––

“Maybe some other time,” she says with half-false regret. “I’ve really gotta go unpack my own stuff. Uh, maybe we can get dinner?”

“Yeah, of course,” Vax says, just as Vex says, “Definitely, darling.”

“Great!” She injects as much cheer into it as she can. “Just text me then?”

“We will,” Percy promises. “Grog and Scanlan should be back from IKEA by then too.”

“The whole gang back together,” Vax grins. “I can’t wait.”

“Me neither,” says Pike, and she beats a hasty retreat, and when she gets back to her room––cold, empty, white walls pressing in all around her––she sits on her plastic mattress and tries not to cry.

* * *

The selling point of the apartment, Pike discovers, is the roof access.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be up here,” Scanlan offers when she asks him; he’d greeted her with his usual panache and she’s still remembering oh, yes, this is what it’s like. “But hey, they didn’t lock the door so it’s fair game.”

“I’m pretty sure they did lock the door,” Keyleth chimes in. “I’m pretty sure they locked the door and Vax––”

“Was ever-so-clever, yes, I know. Aren’t you proud of me?”

“That’s one word for it,” Keyleth tells him, and he goes pouting to Percy who says something to him that has him laughing again. Pike stares.

“They, uh––”

“Oh, yeah,” Scanlan nods. “Worked out their shit about a month before school ended and spent the summer in–– wherever Percy’s internship was. It’s disgusting.”

“They’re both doing really well,” Keyleth says quietly. “It’s been, uh. Good for them. To have someone.”

Pike’s throat goes inexplicably dry. “Anyone else? Uh, have someone?”

“Not me, baby,” Scanlan grins, and then Grog arrives with an extra set of chairs and he wanders off to help. Grog waves at Pike before he gets back to setting up the table; she’s seen him, at least, since she left. One of the perks of going to school with your brother.

Keyleth won’t meet her eyes, but she answers the question anyway. “Grog and Scanlan have been... themselves. Vex met someone, a grad student I think, but I’m not sure if they’re dating? Vex won’t talk about her, and Percy they argue as much as they do anything else but she seems really happy so... I guess that’s good.”

“Yeah,” Pike agrees lamely. “And, uh. And you?”

“Oh, uh. No, I haven’t–– I’m not––” She laughs a little, hollow, and Pike knows that sound so well. She has made it herself too many times. “I’m me, y’know?”

“You’re amazing,” Pike says, almost snaps. Keyleth recoils. “I just mean–– Don’t let anyone tell you different, okay?”

“Uh,” Keyleth says, and then Grog bellows, “Food’s up!!” and they both jump. They’re standing close enough Keyleth’s arm brushes against hers, and she’s still so warm, just like Pike remembers. She swallows back heartache.

“I guess we should go eat, then,” Pike says, and Keyleth nods.

They sit across the table from each other, and Pike can’t quite meet her eyes, but she can’t look away either.

Awkwardness aside, it’s still a lovely meal, all noise and laughter and good food and better company and God, she’s missed these people.

She and Percy do the dishes, because Keyleth and the twins cooked, and Grog and Scanlan set up the table and everything––”Which we should just leave up here, really, cause it’s practically our own balcony,” Scanlan had argued––and it’s an amiable sort of silence as they work, all hot water and suds, everyone else still up on the roof with the boxed wine Grog brought. (She’d tried so hard to convince him to get something better. She’d failed.)

“How are you really?” Percy asks when they’re reaching the bottom of the sink. She glances up at him, but he’s focused on drying the salad bowl and doesn’t meet her gaze for more than a second.

“Getting better,” she tells him. “The time off was good but it–– I feel like I’m missing things. With you guys.” Jokes she didn’t get, people she doesn’t know, it–– It’s hard. She knew it was gonna be hard. That doesn’t help much.

“You’ll get them back,” he promises. “It was the same when I–– When I had to go home, that semester.”

Right, yes. She’d almost forgotten.

“How is–– how’s that?”

“Good,” he says, and he sounds it. “Cassandra’s applying to schools this year. She’s looking at the other coast, though. I think she wants more sun.”

“That’s understandable,” Pike replies with the faintest hint of wry humor, and Percy smiles, the sort that reaches his eyes. He’d doing that more now. Vax must be good for him. Speaking of––

“You and Vax, huh?”

“I, oh, um,” he says, and his face goes red as the plate he’s drying. Pike grins.

“You both seem happy.”

He considers for a moment, that familiar silence he falls into while searching for the right words. “We are,” he says finally. “It’s been... We don’t always see eye to eye, of course but he’s... It’s nice, to have someone to trust. To rely on.”

“That’s wonderful,” Pike tells him, trying not to think of her own... anything. “I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you.”

They finish the dishes in silence, and only when she’s folding the dish towels does Percy say, “She missed you, you know.”

Pike freezes.

“She never said, but, well. Everything’s always all over her face.”

Yes, Pike remembers. Remembers how bright she can look. Remembers how heartbroken she was when Pike told her she was going.

_Pike fiddles with the hem of her shirt. “I just... I can’t do this right now. I can’t be here I can’t–– I need some time.”_

_“Time from what, Pike? From us?” She doesn’t say from me by Pike hears it anyway._

_“No, no. Not you. Never you.” And she means all of them but she also means Keyleth; it’s never Keyleth’s fault, not ever. “But I–– It’s not good for me, being here. Not right now.”_

_“Let us help.” Hope and worry and desperation play across her face, like reading an open book. “Please, let us help.”_

_Pike swallows. “I don’t think you can. I’ll come back, I will, I just. I just need time.”_

“Maybe you two ought to talk,” Percy says gently. “I don’t mean to push, or pry, but I think it might be better if you talked.”

“Did it help you?” Pike asks quietly. Percy smiles, and there is little humor in the expression.

“It took a while,” he admits. “But yes. Eventually.”

Pike places the neatly folded towel on the counter.

“Thank you for the advice, Percy,” she says evenly.

He lets her leave without saying a word.

* * *

Her exit is stymied by the one person she’s truly trying to avoid.

“Oh!” Keyleth’s eyes blow wide open. “Sorry, I was just–– Coming to put away glasses.”

Pike eyes the half-full one already in her hand, wine a watery, industrial red-pink. In her other hand she carries four empty, plastic cups in various shades of neon.

“Are you going to finish that?” Pike blurts out, and Keyleth hands it over wordlessly. Pike downs half of it in one easy gulp. It tastes like shit. She’s missed this.

“Look,” she says, wiping her mouth. “I think we should talk.”

“Yeah,” says Keyleth, a little morose. “Yeah, me too.”

The roof is taken, so they go down to the basement.

The washing machines hum and rumble around them, an almost-soothing white noise. Pike hoists herself up onto a dryer, and Keyleth sort of stands in front of her. The empty cups sit at Pike’s elbow. They pass the dregs of Keyleth’s drink between them, wait until its finished to start this.

Whatever this is.

“Percy suggested this,” Pike says. “It was his idea.”

“Nosey,” Keyleth says, and Pike nods in agreement, and the conversation fizzles out again. Pike rolls the cups between her hands and tries to set her thoughts in order, and then gives up. She puts the cups down.

“You understand, right?” she asks. The steady rumble of the laundry machines swallow her words before they make it far, but Keyleth hears, because her face goes drawn.

“Yeah,” she nods. “I get it.”

“You’re not mad, are you?”

She shrugs. “I was. At you, I guess. At me too, though. I kept thinking I should have done something, or tried, I don’t know. Tried harder.”

Pike winces. “I’m sorry.”

“What? No, don’t be sorry!” Keyleth takes a step forward, takes one of Pike’s hands in her own. “I understand, I do. It took me a while but–– It’s not fair of me. Of us. To just, expect you to be here. To be okay.”

Pike bites her lip, considers it. “I’d like to be,” she admits. “To be here. To be okay.”

“You’re here,” Keyleth offers, face going a little soft, like she’s been picking up expressions from Vax, like they’re all a little bit mixed in with each other. Pike likes the thought of that. “That’s a start, right? A good start.”

“You think?”

“Yeah.”

Pike squeezes her hand. Keyleth smiles. Pike’s stomach does a backflip.

“There’s, um, there’s another thing,” Pike says, stutters.

“Yeah?”

“I... I’m not sure we were in a good... place, when I left. Between us. Besides the... that.”

“Right.”

“So I thought maybe we should, um.”

She can’t do it. She can’t say it. Keyleth frowns.

“Should what?”

“Oh, I, um.” She grits her teeth, sets her shoulders. Keyleth’s fingers are still wrapped around her own, warm with that inner fire Keyleth carries everywhere she goes. “I thought maybe we should try again.”

Keyleth’s frown deepens. “Try what again?”

Pike takes a deep breath. “Us. This. You and me being... y’know.”

“Dating?”

“Yeah.”

Keyleth stares at her a long time. A long time. Long enough that Pike starts to fidget on top of the dryer.

“Yeah,” Keyleth decides. “Okay.”

“Great! Wait, really?”

Keyleth nods. “I, um. Missed you a lot. I’d like to. To try again. Or, y’know, like, keep going? We can think positive.” Hope bleeds across her face as she says it, bright and uncertain, and Pike has to smile at that, to squeeze her hand again.

“Keep going, yeah,” she agrees. “I’d like that.”

“Great!”

“So then, can I kiss you?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Keyleth says, and she’s still nodding when Pike tugs her forward and kisses her warm and relieved and––

“You’re buzzing,” Keyleth mutters against her lips as she shakes ever so slightly with the new rhythm of the dryer.

“Just with love for you, honeybee,” Pike replies, and Keyleth kisses her again, and oh, yes. Maybe things are different, but that’s so bad after all.


End file.
